THE LAKE OF SCUTARI
Dr. Ob, dressed in thick corduroys and an enormous pith helmet, arrived
punctually with the motor, a Montenegrin Government motor. He had two
companions, a girl simply dressed with coat and skirt which did not
match, and cotton gloves whose burst finger ends were not darned, a Miss
Petrovitch, and an officer. The coachwork--if one may dignify it by such
a phrase--which was made from packing cases, had a thousand creaks and
one abominable squeak, which made conversation impossible. The scenery
was all grey rock and little scrubby trees; the road was magnificent and
wound and twisted about the mountain side like a whip lash. Driving down
these curves was no amateur's game, and we saw immediately that our
chauffeur knew his job. We came over a ridge, and in the far distance,
gleaming like the sun itself, a corner of the Lake of Scutari showed
between two hill crests.
We ran into a fertile valley, passed through Rieka--where was the first
Slavonic printing-press--and up into the barren mountains once more.
The peasants seem very industrious, every little pocket of earth is here
carefully cultivated and banked almost in Arab fashion. The houses, too,
were better, and rather Italian with painted balconies, but are built of
porous stone and are damp in winter. The Rieka river ran along the road
for some way, very green and covered with water-lily pods.
We passed a standing carriage, in which was a large man in Montenegrin
clothes, and a little further on passed a man in a grey suit walking.
Dr. Ob gesticulated wildly, and pulled up the motor to gather in a
Frenchman--somebody in the French legation who was going to Scutari for
a week end. He turned suddenly to Jan.
"Ce n'est pas une vie, monsieur," were the first words he uttered. He
admired Miss Petrovitch very much, and told us in an undertone that she
was a daughter of the governor of Scutari, niece of the King of
Montenegro, and one of "les familles le plus chic."
We descended steeply to the Port, ten variously coloured houses and
twenty-five variously clothed people. Miss Petrovitch, to our amazement,
embraced a rather dirty old peasant, the doctor disappeared to find us
luncheon, the Frenchman to wash, and we strolled about.
A voice hailed us, and turning round, we found our mackintoshed American
of Pod. We took him to the inn and stood him a drink. Dr. Ob came in and
we introduced; but Dr. Ob was snifty and the American shy. His home was
near by and he wished us to visit him, but there was no time.
We lunched in a bedroom plastered with pictures. Montenegrins seem to be
ashamed of walls, and they adore royalty. In every room one finds
portraits of the King of Montenegro, the queen, the princes, the King of
Italy, his queen, the Tzar of Russia, the grand dukes and duchesses, the
King of Serbia and his princes, and to cap all a sort of comprehensive
tableau of all the male crowned heads of Europe--including
Turkey--balanced by another commemorating all the queens of
Europe--excluding Turkey--the spaces left between these august people
are filled with family portraits, framed samplers, picture postcards or
a German print showing the seven ages of man over a sort of step-ladder.
After lunch, loaded with grapes which Miss Petrovitch's peasant friend
brought us, we trooped down to the steamer, which had been an old
Turkish gun monitor and had been captured when the Montenegrins took
Scutari.
The boat was crowded, and the Frenchman took refuge in the captain's
cabin, which was crammed with red pepper pods, and went to sleep. Jo
began sketching at once. There were two full-blooded niggers aboard with
us: they were descendants of the Ethiopian slaves of the harems; but the
race is dying out, for the climate does not suit them. We steamed out
into the lake, down the "kingly" canal, a shallow ditch in the mud.
Magnificent mountains rush down on every side to the water, in which
stunted willow trees with myriad roots--like mangroves--find an
amphibious existence. We passed through their groves, hooting as though
we were leaving Liverpool, and out into the eau-de-nil waters of the
open lake.
In three hours we reached Plavnitza, a quay on the mud, where more
passengers were waiting for our already crowded craft. There were
officers, peasants, Turks, and soldiers clad in French firemen's
uniforms. These uniforms, by the way, caused a lot of ill-feeling in
Montenegro. The French sent them out in a spirit of pure economical
charity, and had the Frenchmen not been, on the average, small, and the
Montenegrin, contrariwise, large, perhaps the gift would have been
received with a better grace; but the sight of these enormous men
bursting in all places from their all too tight regimentals, was
ludicrous, and the soldiers felt it keenly.
Two women came aboard, attached to officers, and wearing long light
blue coats, the ceremonious dress of all classes; one carried a wooden
cradle strapped on her back, the woman with no cradle had in her arms a
baby of some ten or eleven months, which she fed alternately on grapes
and pomegranate seeds. With each was a large family including a beastly
little boy who spat all over the decks, and one of the fathers, a stern
gold-laced officer, carried a dogwhip with which to rule his offspring.
After a while we caught sight of Tarabosch, the famous mountain, and
then the silhouette of the old Venetian fortress. From the water
projected the funnels of yet another Turkish ship which had been sunk in
the Balkan war, and we steamed into the amphibious trees on the mudflats
of Scutari.
A boat with chairs in it came for us and we disembarked. The boat was
rather like one of those that children make from paper, called cocked
hats, only rather elongated, and the rowers pushed at the oars which
hung from twisted osier loops. Governor Petrovitch met us on the quay.
He was a fine-featured old man dressed in all the barbaric splendour of
a full national costume, pale green long-skirted coat, red gold
embroidered waistcoat, and baggy dark blue knee breeches with a huge
amount of waste material in the seat. He kissed his daughter and greeted
us genially. We clambered into the usual dilapidated cab with the usual
dilapidated horses, and off to the hotel.
The women on the roadside were clad in picturesque ever-varying
costumes. There were narrow carts with high Indian-like wheels studded
with large nails; there were Albanians in costumes of black and white,
everything we had hoped or expected.
[Illustration]